Telangana, 23 February 2025 — Rescuers are struggling to establish contact with eight men trapped inside an under-construction tunnel in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district after a section of its roof collapsed on Saturday.
“We still don’t have communication with them,” District Collector B Santhosh told PTI. “Rescuers will go inside, assess the situation, and then provide an update.”
The men are stuck approximately 14 km inside the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel, a project aimed at supplying 30 tmc ft of water from the Srisailam reservoir to Nalgonda. The collapse occurred around 8:30 a.m. while 51 workers were excavating through a hill, about 120 km from Hyderabad. Most escaped, but the trapped include two site engineers positioned behind a tunnel boring machine (TBM).
Rescue teams have reached the TBM’s location, but heavy silt is making it difficult to proceed further, Santhosh said. Oxygen and power supply have been maintained, while dewatering and de-silting operations are ongoing.
The rescue effort includes four NDRF teams, 24 army personnel, SDRF teams, 23 specialists from Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL), and members of the infrastructure firm. The Indian Army is coordinating with all stakeholders to accelerate the operation, ANI reported.
Waterlogging just two km before the 13.5 km mark is preventing heavy equipment from reaching the site, an NDRF official told PTI. “Dewatering must be completed before we can start removing debris,” he said, adding that additional motors have been deployed to speed up the process.
When NDRF personnel reached the 13.5 km mark, they attempted to call the trapped workers but received no response. “A 200-meter stretch remains, and only after reaching that point will we know their condition,” the official said.
The trapped men have been identified as project engineer Manoj Kumar and field engineer Sri Niwas from Uttar Pradesh; workers Sandeep Sahu, Jagta Xess, Santosh Sahu, and Anuj Sahu from Jharkhand; Sunny Singh from Jammu & Kashmir; and Gurpreet Singh from Punjab.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi contacted Telangana CM Revanth Reddy for updates and urged the government to ensure all efforts are made to rescue the workers. Governor Jishnu Dev Varma also spoke with the district collector regarding the ongoing operations, PTI reported.
